Wardens Rising preview: An interesting take on the tower defense genre

Wardens Rising
Wardens Rising feels like an intense blend of ARPG and tower defense (Image via Big Moxi Games)

As a long-time fan of ARPGs and tower defense games, I was delighted to try Wardens Rising. Coming in 2025, Big Moxi Games has recently released the game's demo on Steam for players to give a try. I’ve been trying it out recently, and am pretty excited to see where it goes from here. While it does have some minor issues, that’s the nature of an early access/demo state.

While I primarily played this game solo, I feel Wardens Rising would be a lot more fun as a two- or three-player game. Multiplayer would make this far more interesting, especially as the waves get bigger, and the enemies get stronger. Here’s what’s on the way for you as players.


What awaits players in the Wardens Rising demo?

I'm such a big fan of cool mechanical wings and magical powers (Image via Big Moxi Games)
I'm such a big fan of cool mechanical wings and magical powers (Image via Big Moxi Games)

Wardens Rising is a tower defense Action RPG coming to PC and consoles in 2025, courtesy of Big Moxi Games. Players control one of several heroes, that look like they’d fit in nicely into a hero shooter or MOBA. Each of these characters has their own strengths, weaknesses, and devastating attacks. The demo gives you access to three of them:

  • John Cole: Rapid-fire SMGs, lasers, power shots, and the mighty Hammer of Dawn bombardment.
  • Selene Frost: Master of the element of ice, elemental shot attacks, freezing ray, Dome of Cold, and the powerful Ice Storm attack.
  • Liam O’Connor: Close-range shotgun, Flame Thrower, Buster Wolf punch, Ground Smash, and an exo-suit, Mecha Warrior.

When you select a character, you’ll go through a tutorial to learn how the game plays, and then go through the five waves of the Windless Mill Forest map. It has up to two portals on either side of the map across the five survival missions.

It should be noted that when you pick a character for the first time, you cannot skip the tutorial. That can be frustrating if you just want to get into the game. However, one reason I do like this is that you can take that time to learn how the other hero abilities work. There are other missions on the map, but these cannot be tackled at this time - perhaps in future demos? We cannot say, but it would be interesting.


How does the gameplay work in Wardens Rising?

Your HP/VP can be used to upgrade your character between missions (Image via Big Moxi Games)
Your HP/VP can be used to upgrade your character between missions (Image via Big Moxi Games)

From the main HQ, you can interact with the other Wardens, and improve your characters. This is where you can unlock new Perks, Hero Abilities, and Loadouts. You can use Hero Points to upgrade Hero Abilities and Hero Stats (Talents). This is gained by completing missions, alongside Victory Points.

Victory Points are used on Perks, Items, and your SPEC. The SPEC is a hovering bot that helps you in combat, so you aren’t always entirely alone. It’s a pretty handy NPC to help you out, and you can purchase a wide assortment of them.

Once you’re ready, select a mission and head out. You’ll have points to build a variety of towers and traps to defend your base. That’s standard stuff, and it still works fine here in Wardens Rising. However, one thing I’ve noticed is that the costs are pretty high in a single-player setting. It’s not so bad in the early waves, but when you get to later waves, you can easily run out of resources.

There are so many ways to place turrets and traps to successfully survive (Image via Big Moxi Games)
There are so many ways to place turrets and traps to successfully survive (Image via Big Moxi Games)

While this forces players to think creatively and tactically, it could be a serious hurdle for newcomers to overcome. Once you have the fortifications you’re happy with, start the mission. You’ll see the route the enemies will come down, and you can run back and forth (and teleport back to base) to go between the two and help fight.

You can set up walls, mines, a variety of turrets, and flame traps, among other powerful devices to keep things safe. The player also has items to use, alongside their kit, such as Medkits and local rocket bombardments. I liked that I didn’t have to keep rebuying these - that would get expensive fast.

I did notice that you can accidentally die on these maps. While playing John Cole, for example, you can double jump over some rivers to get to the enemies faster. But if you don’t time it well, you fall in, die, and have to wait to respawn. That can easily be the difference between victory and defeat.

The actual gameplay of Wardens Rising felt solid. There were some minor hiccups in performance, but they were few and far between. It got more difficult in the fourth and fifth waves with limited supplies to craft, and large waves of minions, but I didn’t mind that. I do feel like it would be far more interesting if you had other players working together.


Visuals of Wardens Rising are solid

I loved The Hammer of Dawn, but trying to see enemies around it can be difficult (Image via Big Moxi Games)
I loved The Hammer of Dawn, but trying to see enemies around it can be difficult (Image via Big Moxi Games)

The character designs and enemies look decent in Wardens Rising. They don’t really stand out, but they’re not bad either. I do like the colors used, and the overall designs. The map we had access to was easy to follow, and it was clear where to go and where to avoid. The sound effects are solid. Also notably, the special attacks of John Cole did make it kind of hard to see - particularly while activating Hammer of Dawn.


Final Thoughts on Wardens Rising

We're very interested to see where Wardens Rising goes in the future (Image via Big Moxi Games)
We're very interested to see where Wardens Rising goes in the future (Image via Big Moxi Games)

I really enjoyed playing Wardens Rising, and I feel like it’s got a whole lot of heart and promise. The gameplay felt solid, with each mission not overstaying its welcome. Not having to re-purchase items between maps was satisfying. While I only got to play as three characters, all three were great.

That said, I do think that costs for actual building items should be adjusted, perhaps lowered in some cases. One idea is to adjust it based on the number of party members, although I’m not certain how that would work.

Given that I didn’t get a chance to play in multiplayer, I do not know if each player has their own amount of resources to use. Other than a few minor quibbles, I really enjoyed the game, and do recommend trying the demo on Steam.

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Edited by Niladri Roy
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